This manuscript Hebrew Bible with full vocalization, accentuation, and Masorah annotation was created in Spain in around 1300. The Bible is illustrated and decorated in color, silver, and gold. The books of the Bible are arranged in the conventional order later adopted in Hebrew printed editions, with the exception that Ecclesiastes precedes Lamentations. Written on parchment in Sephardi square script, the manuscript has three columns per page, with 35 lines per column. The Masorah Magna notes are written in micrography. Masorah refers to the collection of critical notes, compiled in ...

The Damascus Pentateuch, from around the year 1000, is one of the oldest extant Hebrew biblical manuscripts. It includes full vocalization, accentuation, and Masoretic annotation. The manuscript is defective in its beginning, as it starts with Genesis 9:26; Exodus 18:1–23 is also missing. Written on parchment in oriental square script, the text is in three columns per page, 20 lines per column. The manuscript belonged to the Jewish community of Damascus (hence its name) until 1915, when it was acquired by the collector and bibliophile D.S ...

This Hebrew Pentateuch with Haftarot (portions from the Prophets section of the Hebrew Bible, read in synagogue on Sabbaths and holidays following the Torah portion) added at the end was created in Sana'a, Yemen, in 1485. The manuscript includes full vocalization, accentuation, and Masorah annotation. The Haftarot include the Targum, or Aramaic translation, following each verse. Preceding the Torah text itself are two grammatical treatises (comprising 15 leaves in total) common in Yemen. The manuscript is written on paper in Yemenite square script, in two columns per page, with ...

This manuscript, possibly a remnant of a complete Hebrew Bible, includes books from the Nevi’im (Prophets) as well as the books of Chronicles and Psalms from the Ketuvim (Hagiographa or writings) section of the Bible. (The tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible includes the Torah, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa.) It includes full vocalization and accentuation, as well as some Masorah Parva notes. The latter are very brief notes on the side margins or between columns, which are part of the Masorah, the collection of critical notes, compiled in ...

This drawing of the division of the Land of Israel among the 12 tribes is a copy of a work by Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (1720-97), better known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna (Vilnius, in present-day Lithuania). Elijah of Vilna was one of the most influential non-Hasidic Jewish thinkers since the Middle Ages. In addition to being an authority on the Torah and the Talmud, he was recognized as an accomplished mathematician and astronomer. A prolific writer, Elijah of Vilna produced commentary on nearly every known ...

This hand-colored map of the Holy Land is a reprint of a map that appeared in the 1662 edition of Nicolas Sanson’s Geographia sacra (Sacred geography), first published in 1653. Sanson (1600-67) is considered by many to be the founder of the French school of cartography. The map was published in Amsterdam in 1704 by François Halma (1653-1722), a Dutch bookseller and publisher who started a business in Utrecht, later moved to Amsterdam, and finally settled in Leeuwarden.

This map of the Holy Land by Guillaume Sanson (1633-1703) and Alexis Hubert Jaillot (1632?-1712) is an enlargement of a previous map by Sanson’s father, Nicolas Sanson (1600-67). The map shows the division of Biblical Israel among the Twelve Tribes and is based on information found in the Bible. The younger Sanson took over the family publishing business after his father’s death and had a long-standing relationship with Jaillot, who re-engraved many of Nicolas Sanson’s maps.

This 1695 copperplate engraving of the Holy Land is one of the earliest printed maps in Hebrew. The map was drawn by Abraham Ben-Jacob, a convert to Judaism, based on an earlier map by Christiaan van Adrichem (1533-85), and reproduced in the Amsterdam Haggadah. The map features Biblical illustrations, among them depictions of the story of Jonah and the whale, King Solomon’s fleet carrying the cedar trees for the construction of the temple in Jerusalem, and beehives and cows symbolizing the milk and honey of the Promised Land. The ...

This hand-colored copperplate map of the Holy Land, featuring notable cities from the Bible, appeared in Le theatre du monde ou nouvel atlas (Theater of the world, or new atlas), a work by Jan Jansson (1588-1664) that was published in Amsterdam circa 1658. It depicts the kingdoms of Judea and Israel, along with territory stretching north to present-day Beirut and land on both sides of the Jordan River as far south as the Dead Sea. It also includes a key to major cities, priestly towns, and towns belonging to the ...

This copperplate engraving of the Holy Land is the first in a series of reprints of a map by Christiaan van Adrichem (1533-85) by Dutch publishers in the 17th century. Adrichem was a Roman Catholic priest and biblical scholar, and the map depicts the Holy Land as Adrichem conceived it, based on his study of the scriptures. The map was printed in Amsterdam in 1633 by Henricus Hondius (1597-1651), and was included in a new edition of the Atlas ou representation du monde universel (Atlas, or universal representation of the ...

This map tracing the life of the patriarch Abraham was published in Antwerp in 1590 by Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), the Flemish publisher who created the world’s first atlas. It is the first printing of a map by Tilemann Stella (circa 1525-89), a German cartographer, geographer, and mathematician. The inset map at the upper left shows Abraham’s journey to the Holy Land from the land of his birth, identified in the Bible as Ur of the Chaldees. The main map shows places in the Holy Land identified with Abraham ...

This woodcut map of 1585 shows the Holy Land as it would have appeared at the time of Jesus, divided into Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. The map appeared in the Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae (Travel book through Holy Scripture) of Heinrich Bünting (1545-1606). Bünting studied theology at the University of Wittenberg in Germany and became a Protestant pastor and theologian, but retired from the ministry after controversy arose over some of his teachings. Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae wasan immensely popular book in its day. It provided the most complete available summary ...

This map of Palestine and the Holy Land was published in Florence around 1480 and was included in Francesco Berlinghieri’s expanded edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia (Geography). Berlinghieri, an Italian scholar and diplomat, was the first modern European to interpret, expand upon, and republish the works of the second-century Greek astronomer and geographer. Nicolo Tedesco, a German printer who worked in Florence, printed Berlinghieri’s work as well as engraved the maps. As with all the modern maps of Palestine added to the early printed editions of Ptolemy, this ...

This Latin woodcut map of Palestine is from the Rudimentum Novitiorum (A handbook for beginners), which is a history of the world published in Lübeck, Germany, in 1475 and contains what are considered to be the first printed maps. The map was printed by Lucas Brandis de Schass, and is based on an earlier map by Burchardus de Monte Sion (Burchard of Mount Zion), a 13th-century Dominican priest who traveled extensively through the Holy Land and the Middle East in 1274-84. The map is oriented with west at the bottom ...

This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by the 12th-century Jewish philosopher, theologian, and physician, Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings ...

This work is an Arabic original of Moreh Nevukhim, Maimonides’ masterful synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and traditional Jewish belief. Known in English as The Guide to the Perplexed, the work was originally composed in Arabic and translated into Hebrew by Samuel ibn Tibbon in 1204. Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides, was a Jewish theologian, philosopher, and physician. He was born in Cόrdoba, Spain, in 1135. In 1160 he moved with his family to Fez, Morocco, to escape religious persecution, and eventually settled in Cairo, where he became the ...

This manuscript contains one of Maimonides’ commentaries on the Mishnah, the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. The commentary is on the tractate Avot (Ethics of the fathers), in which Maimonides expounded on morality and the nature of man’s soul, with an introduction (Shemonah perakim) (Eight chapters). Also included are the thirteen principles of belief or articles of faith, a credo of Judaism formulated by Maimonides, a version of which is still used in most Jewish prayer books. Among the principles affirmed in the credo are the oneness of ...

This
manuscript contains a collection of several works by Maimonides, including Igeret
teḥiyat ha-metim (Letter on resurrection)
(translated by Judah Alharizi) and a collection of various medical writings.
The Igeret has an introduction by Joseph ben Joel, of which only the
last part is extant. The medical writings, by an anonymous translator, include Sefer
ha-katseret (Treatise on asthma), from the original, Maqalah fi al-rabw;
Maamar ha-mishgal (Treatise on sexual intercourse), from the original, Fi
al-jama; Maamar shemirat ha-beriut (Guide to good health), from the
original, Fi tadbir al-sihhah; and Maamar ...

This manuscript contains translations into Hebrew of various works by Maimonides from the original Arabic. Included are: Moreh nevukhim, known in English as The Guide to the Perplexed, Perush ha-milim ha-zarot, and Maamar teḥiyat ha-metim, all translated by Samuel ibn Tibbon; Beur milot ha-higayon, translated by Moses ibn Tibbon; Perush perek helek, a commentary on the Mishnah; the tractate Sanhedrin, in a translation variously attributed to Judah Alharizi and Samuel ibn Tibbon; and the Epistle, or Igeret, to Joseph ibn Jabbar of Baghdad, in an anonymous translation. Ibn Jabbar was ...

This manuscript contains commentaries on the Mishnah by Maimonides: on Seder Moed (from the middle of tractate Eruvin), and on Seder Nashim. The manuscript shows hand-written corrections and emendations by Maimonides himself, as well as notes added in the margins by his son, Abraham he-Hasid, and by David ha-Nagid II and others. The headings are written in Sefardi square script. The manuscript was purchased in Damascus in 1908 by the Toledano brothers, who sold it to the noted bibliophile David Solomon Sassoon (Collection no. 72-73) and his descendants. It was ...